False balance: Fox News demands a recount on US’ warmest year

"Is that just math you do as a skeptic to make yourself feel better?"

Back in 2010, a memo leaked from Fox News in which its managing editor informed his staff that they couldn't even report on basic temperature measurements without noting they were subject to controversy in some quarters, even if those quarters are out past the fringes of the scientific community. That directive is apparently still in force. Just days after NOAA released its reading of last year's US temperatures, Fox responded with a report in which it questions whether NOAA is producing accurate temperature readings.

The report is a classic example of what's been termed "false balance." It presents experts with relevant experience and the official word from NOAA, but it simultaneously surrounds them with quotes from several people who aren't scientists—as well as one scientist who is a notable contrarian about other fields of science. In many ways, the self-labelled skeptics contradict each other in their haste to condemn NOAA. But the Fox article doesn't point any of this out, and it actually ends with a veiled hint that we might consider throwing NOAA scientists in jail for their "manipulations of data."

At issue are the historic US temperature records. These are generated from stations maintained by the US government. Over the course of 100-plus years, many of these stations have been moved to new locations or had their equipment replaced. These events create a break in the record. To generate its historical analysis, NOAA has to identify the breaks and perform an analysis that matches up the two end-points, creating a single, continuous record.

Apparently it does a good job. When the Berkeley Earth project examined temperature records, they used a statistical method that didn't repair the breaks. Instead, they treated the two sides of the break as independent temperature records. Yet that team came up with a temperature reconstruction that was nearly identical to ones made using NOAA's data. Since that time, NOAA has gone back and updated their records further, identifying additional breaks that had gone undetected and updating its algorithms to take advantage of advances in computing power. If anything, its current data is even more reliable.

And that's exactly what a NOAA spokesperson told Fox News. Yet the Fox News team felt compelled to go out and find three people who don't believe him or the scientists he represents.

One is a blogger who writes under the name Steve Goddard, who told Fox, "The adjusted data is meaningless garbage. It bears no resemblance to the thermometer data it starts out as." But Goddard doesn't explain why he thinks that's the case, nor why Berkeley Earth came up with similar results when they weren't using some of NOAA's adjustments. And Fox doesn't explain why they're putting NOAA's word up against someone who doesn't study the climate and has only bachelor's degrees in science and engineering. A cursory examination would have also revealed that Goddard has attacked climate researchers before, only to find out his criticisms were completely wrong and based on a trivial error.

The report does include one scientist with some relevant experience, Roy Spencer. But again, Fox does not appear to have done any checking of Spencer's background. Spencer has been known to let his personal views cloud his scientific judgement, as evidenced by his wholehearted support of intelligent design and disbelief of evolution. In the case of environmental issues, he's made his personal views very clear, stating, "I would wager that my job has helped save our economy from the economic ravages of out-of-control environmental extremism." A lot of his climate research isn't well respected by the community, either.

But Spencer is brought out anyway and given a chance to blast NOAA for its adjustments. At least he voiced a specific complaint, saying that urbanization has thrown off the temperature records. Unfortunately, that claim isn't consistent with the available data. People have tracked the impact of urbanization both globally and in the US and found that it doesn't influence the temperature record. The Berkeley Earth project, linked above, also found no influence of urbanization. Yet Spencer is allowed to point the finger at it unchallenged.

The final critic trotted out is meteorologist Anthony Watts, who runs a prominent skeptic site that is notable for its generally flawed approach to science. Nevertheless, Watts himself was involved with some research that showed that the US' historic temperature record hasn't been unduly influenced by urbanization; ironically, his own stab at science is being dismissed here by Spencer.

And Watts returns the favor. Spencer recognized that some form of adjustment was necessary, but Watts slams any such effort as reinventing history: "Is history malleable? Can temperature data of the past be molded to fit a purpose? It certainly seems to be the case here." His evidence that this is the case? If he provided any to Fox, it wasn't relayed in the article.

What are we to make of this chaotic jumble of unreliable sources and internal contradictions? As far as Fox is concerned, apparently nothing; the article doesn't draw any conclusion about the science whatsoever. It's a classic example of false balance, allowing the reporter to present a biased picture while maintaining the appearance of impartiality. But the reporter does let Watts show his biases when he's given the last word, and he uses it to insinuate that NOAA's scientists should probably be in prison, saying, "In the business and trading world, people go to jail for such manipulations of data."

378 Reader Comments

It doesn't even bear a passing resemblance to the social and economical problem.

Pretending for a moment that acknowledged science is "doomsday predictions", I'll add that it is a serious moral problem that will not some day make people die from lack of food "and clean air" (???). People are already dying (say, the 50 000 that died in the russian heat wave now attributed to AGW) and the largest problem is that climate change will hit the poor.

If you have a social security network as in modern nations, tax payers burden will shoot through the roof. And in US alone financing the increased insurance burden is already costlier than preventing AGW was early on.

But it doesn't help your cause when Al Gore goes out and sells his TV network (with all of 22,000 viewers) to a company owned by a petrostate. For someone who is so concerned about "green" energy, he's managed to make a lot (more than Dick Cheney ever did) from Big Oil.

The suspicion about AGW here is driven because most of the "solutions" offered by those on the left involve massive new government regulation, higher taxes on energy, and carbon trading schemes that haven't actually been shown to even accomplish their goals, and which could have a significant negative economic impact. Canada and Australia heartily embraced the Kyoto treaty and fell significantly short of their carbon reduction goals (carbon production expanded significantly in both countries). The EU barely met its goals, but much of that was by shifting manufacturing to China, which was exempt from the rules (simply moving the problem around). Here in the US, we actually saw carbon output decline over the past 5 years (and not all of it was the recession, since our economy is now bigger than it was 5 years ago).

With nuclear power falling out of favor, we do need to find good medium term sources of energy. Solar and wind can't provide enough power using current technology. They may be part of the solution eventually, but if we want meaningful reductions, we need to take advantage of technologies that we know work, such as fracking and carbon sequestration. Of course there are risks, but too often we see people on the left who turn a blind eye to these technologies because they don't fit their preconceived notions.

...People are already dying (say, the 50 000 that died in the russian heat wave now attributed to AGW) ...

I'm like, 50K? Really? So I look it up:

from wiki: "Thus, the Russian population affected by extreme heat is at least double the population of Moscow, and the death toll in Russia from the 2010 heat wave is probably at least 15,000, and may be much higher. The only comparable heat wave in European history occurred in 2003, and killed an estimated 40,000 - 50,000 people, mostly in France and Italy."

Further reading reminds that about 7 to 8 thousand were documented to have died in Moscow (hard to tell who would have died anyway, so it's all big round estimates), the remaining 7 to 8K is just an estimate of those that probably died in the surrounding countryside. And the majority of those 15K actually died of extended smoke inhalation from the wildfires surrounding Moscow.

Wildfires that yes, were made worse by a heatwave, which may have in turn, been made worse by AGW.

But it's not exactly the truth that AGW just killed fifty thousand Russians, is it?

It doesn't even bear a passing resemblance to the social and economical problem.

Pretending for a moment that acknowledged science is "doomsday predictions", I'll add that it is a serious moral problem that will not some day make people die from lack of food "and clean air" (???). People are already dying (say, the 50 000 that died in the russian heat wave now attributed to AGW) and the largest problem is that climate change will hit the poor.

If you have a social security network as in modern nations, tax payers burden will shoot through the roof. And in US alone financing the increased insurance burden is already costlier than preventing AGW was early on.

But it doesn't help your cause when Al Gore goes out and sells his TV network (with all of 22,000 viewers) to a company owned by a petrostate. For someone who is so concerned about "green" energy, he's managed to make a lot (more than Dick Cheney ever did) from Big Oil.

Is he almost a billionaire now? Let me tell you, those carbon credits he trades are helping me out tons. Always a man of the people, that Al Gore.

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The suspicion about AGW here is driven because most of the "solutions" offered by those on the left involve massive new government regulation, higher taxes on energy, and carbon trading schemes that haven't actually been shown to even accomplish their goals, and which could have a significant negative economic impact....

Actually, give that middle one some more thought. And then a bit more after that.

Imagine no income tax, gas is $8.00 a gallon, and your monthly heating bill goes from $300 to $400. I know most of you dismissed the idea out of hand. But consider what no income tax would do for the economy. No W2s. Nobody keeps up with it, or cares how much you make in a year. How freeing would that be for any economy, especially ours?

Sure, it's mad expensive to jump in the Hummer for a weekend road trip to Vegas, but you have a measure of choice there. Obviously, many uses of burning carbon are not so trivial, but in every case the users would have more choice than they do in the taxation scheme we have now. A truly carbon-neutral business would operate tax free, simply by existing. I could go on forever with positive benefits.

The right politician could get 90% of the people fervently on board with that. (But I don't see either of our two parties producing anyone that progressive). And to your next point about nuclear, well that would be a big boost, wouldn't it? Nuclear became at least twice as profitable overnight. (Really, more so, since the rich are now going frikking nuts trying to out-invest each other.)

And I wish supposedly smart people would finally get that all the significant energy stored in the Earth's crust, and certainly the only source worth exploiting, at least until the Earth's gravity well is no longer a barrier, are fissionable ores.

Ice cores are one of the most effective, though not the only, methods of recreating long term records of temperature and atmospheric gases.Particularly in the polar region, but also at high elevations elsewhere, snow falls on an annual cycle and remains permanently. Over time, a few decades, the layers of snow compact under their own weight and become ice. By drilling through that ice, and recovering cylinders of it, it is possible to reconstruct records of temperature and of atmospheric gases for periods of hundreds of thousands of years....In the case of temperature no direct measurement is possible. The temperature values are estimated from different isotopes of oxygen and hydrogen. The methodology is based on the assumption that different isotopes evaporate at different rates depending on the temperature. It is generally considered that the best estimate of temperature from ice cores is based on the use of both Oxygen-18 and Deuterium. Another complication is that ice is not stationary, which means that the ice collected at lower layers may not be the ice that was originally underneath the upper layers. Despite all of these limitations, it is generally accepted that ice cores give a good representation of temperature over very long periods. They are able to answer such questions as what drives the cycle of ice ages and warm periods and what is the role of CO2 in long-term climate change.

Save your smarmy bullshit for someone who's willing to put up with it, you ignorant smear. If you really want to help, shut up until you have some idea of what you're talking about. You clearly don't right now.

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A scientist is defined by someone who has no vested interest in the outcome of an experiment. The only outcome of interest is the correct outcome whatever it is even if you don’t like it. You sir are so far away from being a scientist.

You're right about one thing here, I'm not a scientist. I can only listen to scientists. Instead of puffing myself up to second-guess them out of ignorance when the overwhelming majority of their opinion is against mine, I pretty much concede that they know better than I do what all this climate stuff means. That's why I, being a non-scientist, get my information from scientists. Unlike you, I don't presume to tell them what to think about their own field of expertise.

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Are you kidding? If there are no problems to be solved they wouldn’t need billions of dollars of grant money for research.

Grant money to do what with? What is their aim? What do you think they do all day, if they know that climate change is really a fraud?

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Why… why would anybody create a catastrophe by crushing the economy based on a wild ass theory that hasn’t even BEGUN to be researched by gathering data for at least the next hundred years.

You tell me, since you obviously think this is what's happening. Why would they sabotage their own economy?

... same useful idiots will want to respond with their typical vitriol, but by doing so will directly expose themselves... ...The need to compensate for ridiculously small genitalia and even smaller intellect, or the desire to try to save some shred of personal integrity...Let's see which wins...

We just did. Nice vapid insult.

chazzone wrote:

BTW, folks,we have ample evidence of government agencies promoting their political agenda, through false numbers in this area. We also have ample evidence that there is no significant warming in the last 16 years, and not from "fringe" sources.Get a life people, you all look like complete asses repeating your talking points.

You should take your own advice and stop looking like a complete ass talking about conspiracy theories that don't exist. Where is your evidence of these "false numbers"? Where is your evidence that there hasn't been any significant warming in the last 16 years?

Your nameless, faceless source (climatedata.info) is worthless therefore the information is worthless. Obviously you are not a scientist and with your personal insults you also prove you are incapable of intelligent discourse.

It was, but earlier last year I decided to take it back to them. (After they pissed me off by reacting to the President's statement on gay & lesbian marriage rights with the headline, right on the Fox Nation landing page: "WAR ON MARRIAGE")

But then go and find a remote site. Someplace untouched by hundreds of square miles of pavement... KOFA mine is in the middle of freaking nowhere, and it too shows a small but real average increase.http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMAIN.pl?az4702

Most sites do indicate that, yes, the western section of the US is getting warmer. (The least affected sites tend to be at high altitude.)

Wheels of Confusion:Quote:“It was proven when we got our hands on ice cores that record temperature and CO2 concentrations.”

You can get “temperature records” from a piece of ice? CO2 levels maybe; but “temperature records”??????????????

I’m just trying to help. It is so obvious you are reaching; to the point of just makin’ stuff up; to try and convince yourself that what you think is true is true.

No, you're not trying to help, but you do make a case for how Fox News is still on the air. May I suggest using Teh Google before writing something like the above? Maybe try using "temperature records ice cores" without quotes. Oy!

If you're going to insult Wheels who obviously has his stuff together on this topic, then at least cheat and learn something within a minute with the magic that is Google -- before embarrassing yourself.

reality obviously has a liberal bias. that's why sites like http://www.conservapedia.com/ sprang up - to create a parallel reality where, e.g., wimmins git back in the kitchen, gays git back in the closet (or self-deport, natch) and minorities stop mooching off all them hard-working real amer'kins

That is one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen. I am afraid now; I have fear.

Yes, I can see how "together" your friend Wheels of Confusion is by the fact his primary source of information is anonymous. Somebody published it on the Internet so there you have it. It's all settled. No need to verify anything or to even stop and wonder if it makes any sense. There are many sources of information and research (I mean legitimate that is); you and your "together" friend seem to pick and choose the ones that give the answer you want. OK, I'll admit it; you're both geniuses.

There's plenty of regulation here. Actually the "serious" discussion should acknowledge the positive benefits of fracking, which "environmentalists" have fought tooth and nail. It wasn't because of regulators that carbon emissions have fallen over the past 5 years. If anything, it's in spite of them..

I agree with you that we should speed up our pollution because....because...well, not sure really but the words appeal to my emotions so that's all I need.

Nevertheless, Colorado is going to be doing an in-depth study on how much methane is released from fracking wells. It's about time and then we'll be able to show it is just a money (and water) grab and that will be that.

But it doesn't help your cause when Al Gore goes out and sells his TV network (with all of 22,000 viewers) to a company owned by a petrostate. For someone who is so concerned about "green" energy, he's managed to make a lot (more than Dick Cheney ever did) from Big Oil.

The suspicion about AGW here is driven because most of the "solutions" offered by those on the left involve massive new government regulation, higher taxes on energy, and carbon trading schemes that haven't actually been shown to even accomplish their goals,

I DO appreciate you pointing out the worthlessness of private solutions to public problems. I guess you have shown the world the uselessness of those privatization schemes. And for that, we thank you!

Your nameless, faceless source (climatedata.info) is worthless therefore the information is worthless. Obviously you are not a scientist and with your personal insults you also prove you are incapable of intelligent discourse.

Translation: he needs Hannity, Rush et al to explain it for him else it doesn't have worth.

Your nameless, faceless source (climatedata.info) is worthless therefore the information is worthless. Obviously you are not a scientist and with your personal insults you also prove you are incapable of intelligent discourse.

So "George2013" declares Wheels source as "worthless". With what? Evidence? Nope. Just arrogance. From watching your discussion with Wheels, my conclusion is that you don't have a clue what intelligent discourse is. Prove me wrong by finding some evidence that climatedata.info is "worthless".

Your nameless, faceless source (climatedata.info) is worthless therefore the information is worthless. Obviously you are not a scientist and with your personal insults you also prove you are incapable of intelligent discourse.

This is positively baffling. Wheels linked to what is essentially a definition of a very simple thing. I'm not usually worried about whether a dictionary is biased about telling me if there is really such a thing as a "hammer".

b) Did you bother to click on anything on that site? The first item on their FAQ page gives their names. "Nameless, faceless source"? Not so much.

c) Most geology 100 students learn about ice core climate records. I bet many high school science students learn that they exist now. If you'd ever watched a documentary about climate science, you couldn't have missed them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RyvpsIx47E

Are you just trolling? If you honestly didn't know these records existed, people would be more than happy to provide information about them if you asked instead of posting inane insults.

For "Wheels of Confusion:" Your nameless, faceless source (climatedata.info) is worthless therefore the information is worthless. Obviously you are not a scientist and with your personal insults you also prove you are incapable of intelligent discourse.

Shall we look at the salvo of insults you've launched since you first showed up, four posts ago? Your entire debut has been one string of insinuation and aspersions cast on everybody here.

Your first post wrote:

Wow; I thought the average ARS reader would be more objective and fair minded. You do realize the magnitude of assumptions that the AGW theory revolves around right? In my eyes any person who is absolutely certain of AGW is as big a fool as the so called "denier". CO2 is .039% of the atmosphere. It hasn't even been proven that CO2 at 1% would make a difference. You do realize you are worshiping wildly complex computer models created by persons with a monetary vested interest in the outcome right? If you can't acknowledge that you are a "denier". Two tenths of one degree is WAY inside the resolution of any measurement system used in the past 30 years let alone the past 3,000 years. Use your frikin' head. The "climate" has been warming since the last ice age. AGW is the question. Oh; that's anthropogenic global warming (or warming caused by people) for you folks that don't know.As far as the evil fox news; by and large they report the same AP/Reuters stuff everybody else reports. They have several "comment" shows but so does the other "news" channels. Truth is you can tell exactly what the talking head thinks just by listening to them no matter what channel they're on. Can't you think for yourself?

Your second post wrote:

Wheels of Confusion:Quote:“It was proven when we got our hands on ice cores that record temperature and CO2 concentrations.”You can get “temperature records” from a piece of ice? CO2 levels maybe; but “temperature records”??????????????I’m just trying to help. It is so obvious you are reaching; to the point of just makin’ stuff up; to try and convince yourself that what you think is true is true.A scientist is defined by someone who has no vested interest in the outcome of an experiment. The only outcome of interest is the correct outcome whatever it is even if you don’t like it. You sir are so far away from being a scientist.

Your fourth post wrote:

For "sekoontz"Yes, I can see how "together" your friend Wheels of Confusion is by the fact his primary source of information is anonymous. Somebody published it on the Internet so there you have it. It's all settled. No need to verify anything or to even stop and wonder if it makes any sense. There are many sources of information and research (I mean legitimate that is); you and your "together" friend seem to pick and choose the ones that give the answer you want. OK, I'll admit it; you're both geniuses.

Such big talk from a guy who is so cocksure about temperature records not being preserved in ice cores, despite clearly never having looked for that information. Perhaps your attitude could have been defended if you had showed us that you knew what you were talking about. But you don't. You can't even get basic facts straight. It's also clear that you made no effort to size up the guy you're belittling in public. You've made no effort to understand the science you're talking about or the people you're talking at. Don't try to "help" me with stuff you have made no effort to understand. You know what it's called when you make pronouncements about something without trying to know about it first? Bullshitting. Fortunately for us all, there are more intelligent and careful people in the world who actually take the time to understand things before firing off with the insults. Not only are you ignorant and arrogant, you are a hypocrite. You understand nothing about climate science, but presume to lecture those that do know a thing or two about it. Every single argument you've made has been wrong, either in fact or in logic, and I've been trying to point out your errors. You started off with insults and continued to insult me the entire time, even as I gave you correct information to replace your obviously incorrect information. You have acknowledged exactly nothing about your errors. You don't acknowledge any of my questions to you about your stance or your dubious sources of information. You have provided ZERO links, nameless or otherwise, to back up your attack on science or the people posting here. This would be a comedy of errors except that I suspect you are of voting age, and your demonstrable wrongness and willful ignorance probably figures into national policy at the ballot. That just makes this farce a tragedy. Congratulations, I can't even laugh at you.

Your nameless, faceless source (climatedata.info) is worthless therefore the information is worthless. Obviously you are not a scientist and with your personal insults you also prove you are incapable of intelligent discourse.

You know, I clicked the big red links in the upper right of that page labeled "DATA SOURCES" and "DATA DOWNLOADS" and found all kinds of source information. I also clicked the tab labeled "FAQ" at the top of the page and found that the first entry is "Who are you?". The FAQ also addresses these questions that might help clear up your confusion:

www.climatedata.info FAQ wrote:

Why did you set up the site?Do you intend to develop the site?Are you alarmists or deniers?How did you choose the data sets to be processed?How have you processed the data?What assurance can we have in the accuracy of the data?How do I access the supplementary information shown in the graphs on the website?What information is provided in the downloads?Why do you use CSV files?Do you accept data or written contributions?

climatedata.info has a credit on the FAQ page. Yes of course, it’s the old credit on the FAQ page trick and I fell for it. My point was it is not published, credited, peer reviewed documentation. Actually Mr. Manley and Mr. Reynolds make an interesting revelation:

FAQ: Are you alarmists or deniers? …Neither

This is what I’ve said from the beginning. Anybody that thinks AGW is a proven, reviewed and settled conclusion is… OK, mistaken. Mr. Manley and I will just have to agree to agree.It would appear however that I chose the wrong statement by Mr. Wheels of Confusion to make a point. Wheels of Confusion stated “it” (presumably AGW since that is what I was talking about), has been proven 50 years ago by the Air Force. My point is stating the Air Force or ice cores or some data set or whatever has proven AGW is a fabricated delusion.The bottom line is I’m tired of know-it-alls trying to “help me” by wasting my tax dollars and trying to screw up the economy. If AGW is in fact a reality we will know for certain soon enough. I probably won’t live to see the real answer but for sure I’m not going to just sit by and let fools screw up the economy today without complaining about it. But I’ve made my point clear enough.

It would appear however that I chose the wrong statement by Mr. Wheels of Confusion to make a point.

It appears that you can't admit to not knowing what you're talking about. Not even for an instant. Not even when everybody has piled on to show you how wrong you are. As I said, you don't even care how wrong you are; you're a bullshitter.

Quote:

Wheels of Confusion stated “it” (presumably AGW since that is what I was talking about), has been proven 50 years ago by the Air Force. My point is stating the Air Force or ice cores or some data set or whatever has proven AGW is a fabricated delusion.

And yet you can't make this point except by simply asserting it. All your appeals to facts (such as they are) are dismal failures, and you haven't given us anything in the way of logic. What you have are conspiracy theories and baseless denial.

Tell me something; between the two of us, which one knows more about climate science? Do you still think you know more than me, and that I need your help to weigh the evidence? What do you have to offer?

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The bottom line is I’m tired of know-it-alls trying to “help me” by wasting my tax dollars and trying to screw up the economy.

I'm tired of know-nothings trying to "help me" by blocking responsible and reality-based government policy with their senseless denialism. You seem to think that nothing can go wrong even if AGW is right. In that attitude you display even more reality denial, since you can't acknowledge what could possibly be at stake. You have given this situation zero risk assessment in addition to your zero homework about the science. You are literally arguing based on nothing more than your preconceptions and politics.

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If AGW is in fact a reality we will know for certain soon enough. I probably won’t live to see the real answer...

You're simply in denial. To support your denial you have given us nothing in the way of evidence, facts, or any empirical basis. All you've given us is your political ideology. That's how you choose to make your point? Nobody wants your political ideology out of you, we want some actual factual science. Because to most of us, this is not a question to be settled by political policy. You cannot change the laws of physics via legislation or taxation. The science says what it says. Reality marches on.

(sigh) OK; but this is my last post. The scientific process works like this. The burden of proof is on the hypothesis. I have not in any way presented a hypothesis that requires any proof.

But at some point the burden inevitably shifts to those in opposition. If the weight of evidence in support of a position is so persuasive that the vast majority of those knowable in the area accept the hypothesis then the challenge is to those who dispute the validity of that hypothesis to show where/why it is wrong. Simply running around Monty Python-style saying "no it isn't" isn't good enough. And that is all you have done. You don't even seem to know what the evidence in support of AGW is. You can't dispute something you don't even know exists. Take your unfamiliarity with using isotope ratios in ice cores to estimate past temperature. Not only did you display your ignorance that such a procedure was possible but you actually seemed to think that you were making some sort of point... where in fact the only way to make a point about this would be for you to first know and thoroughly understand the theory and practice behind these types of estimates and then substantively refute some material aspect of the theory or procedure being used. You did neither. All you did in essence was say "no it isn't". Then you attacked the person who pointed out that you were wrong.

Simply put, you can't dispute a proposition as lacking evidence when you don' know the evidence in support in the first place.

Simply put, you can't dispute a proposition as lacking evidence when you don' know the evidence in support in the first place.

And you clearly don't. You are taking the affirmative position that the evidence isn't there when in fact you have no idea what the evidence even is. Your argument thus carries no weight. [And Lars Bucket, this isn't ad homonym, it is simply ordinary logic applied to the facts put in evidence by George2013's posts.]

What you're doing here is an argument form authority. You are highlighting people who appear to be experts who hold the views you'd like to believe.

Unfortunately, if you're going to do that, you should explain why we should trust your authorities when every single scientific society that's taken an official position on climate change has taken one opposite to what you'd like to believe. Or why surveys of the literature show that the vast majority of papers, and the vast majority of currently publishing climate scientists, accept the evidence for anthropogenic climate change.

The majority of the relevant authorities don't agree with you.

Also, still waiting for you to comment about how you were so badly uninformed about a basic technique of the geosciences (deriving temperatures from ice cores) and insulted the first person who tried to point that out to you. Have you accepted the information that Scott provided you above?

I hate Fox and their abuse of media power to bash science as much as the next Ars reader. Even in this specific case, obviously Fox was in the wrong. However, it saddens me to see you guys write

Quote:

Spencer has been known to let his personal views cloud his scientific judgement, as evidenced by his wholehearted support of intelligent design and disbelief of evolution.

I'm definitely in the minority here at MIT, being a Christian, and it's very apparent; people love to hold intelligent discussions/arguments about religion and intelligent design. But most people here (though definitely not all) respect each others' sides, and at the end of the day, my friends don't discount my technical abilities or points of view relative to scientific fields because I'm Christian. Similarly, I wish that weren't your basis for discounting this individual. Certainly, he's the typical Fox contrarian "scientist" who knows that holding far-right beliefs that go against scientific data without any good reasoning will still get him his 15 minutes of fame on Fox. But as much as it pains me to feel the prejudice of being lumped in with the hateful people of Westboro, it also pains me to feel the prejudice of being considered unscientific just because of my beliefs.

I'm definitely in the minority here at MIT, being a Christian, and it's very apparent; people love to hold intelligent discussions/arguments about religion and intelligent design...

I think you'll find any such debates at MIT are only half intelligent. It is possible to be a Christian without being a complete retard (which is the case with much of my family, to my great disappointment) but the second you start talking about ID I'll flip you the bird and chase you off my lawn, if you didn't already leave when I started gathering all the sharp objects in my house.

I hate Fox and their abuse of media power to bash science as much as the next Ars reader. Even in this specific case, obviously Fox was in the wrong. However, it saddens me to see you guys write

Quote:

Spencer has been known to let his personal views cloud his scientific judgement, as evidenced by his wholehearted support of intelligent design and disbelief of evolution.

I'm definitely in the minority here at MIT, being a Christian, and it's very apparent; people love to hold intelligent discussions/arguments about religion and intelligent design. But most people here (though definitely not all) respect each others' sides, and at the end of the day, my friends don't discount my technical abilities or points of view relative to scientific fields because I'm Christian. Similarly, I wish that weren't your basis for discounting this individual. Certainly, he's the typical Fox contrarian "scientist" who knows that holding far-right beliefs that go against scientific data without any good reasoning will still get him his 15 minutes of fame on Fox. But as much as it pains me to feel the prejudice of being lumped in with the hateful people of Westboro, it also pains me to feel the prejudice of being considered unscientific just because of my beliefs.

Funny thing about "beliefs," when your beliefs are unscientific, people (rightfully) consider you to be unscientific. When you start refuting the most well-supported theories in all of science this becomes especially extreme. So you can question, say, string theory, or quantum mechanics, or even dark energy (these are all highly theoretical fields with real empirical support only just starting to really come in), and you can still be scientific (provided your criticisms are based on evidence and the merits of the hypotheses/theories in question). What you can't do is question EVOLUTION or rigorously tested, verified, and REPRODUCIBLE evidence, and still expect to have any credibility with regard to scientific thought.

EDIT TO CLARIFY:That's not to say that you shouldn't question science, but rather that the question needs to have some basis in observable reality, evidence, SCIENCE, not fantasy such as the Bible or what your priest told you; priests are not scientists, they are showmen and public speakers, they're just selling you religion instead of a time-share.

Yes, great PHILOSOPHICAL discussions about religion can be had, and ID (read: Creationism) can be a great laugh, but as soon as you try to put forth religious belief, in absence of evidence (and especially when it's contradicted by evidence), as a refutation of reality, you're no longer having an intelligent discussion, you're an ignorant zealot no better than the guy on a soap box shouting about the end of the world, or the nut jobs blaming homosexuals for everything from 9/11 to the economy to the more recent shooting in Connecticut; your assertions are no longer based in fact, but blind belief with no empirical backing, and in contradiction with reality.